Vietnamm.com

Home delivery of food in the evenings is a big feature of life in Ho Chi Minh. Therefore Vietnamm.com is the expats friend and a cheap friend at that. While I have heard of the website tonight was my inaugural visit. This site operates the same way as online retailers. You log on, choose your food type scroll through the restaurants, select your food and place it all into the shopping cart before proceeding to check out. User friendly. Some restaurants have a minimal delivery fee, 5,000 VN Dong. Pittance about 15 cents NZ. Others have a minimum order amount. Occasionally restaurants have a waiting time. Tonight I ordered, received a text to say my food would be arriving by motorbike delivery to my apartment door in 45 minutes at 18:30. At precisely that time my delivery arrives. Efficiency plus. For 109,000 plus a 1,000 Dong tip to round it all up to 110,000 $6 NZ I got the attached 2 containers of food. A pork chowmein type dish and complementary rice. The quality and quantity of the food is good, enough for 2 meals. Was it value for money? From my perspective yes I have 2 meals. What's the economic value to the restaurant? A meal like that would sell on the street from a small time vendor for about 50 to 60,000. There are over heads packaging napkins, and throw away chop sticks and plastic spoon and of course delivery costs wages etc. My meal didn't have an attached delivery fee. Probably the restaurant made a 30 percent plus profit. And the delivery guy got 1,000 tip from me and he had another 3 meals in his chilly bin to deliver so it's all worth his while. And of course no washing up. A definite win win for everyone concerned.